


With Teeth

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampires, Bloodplay, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan's been missing for four years. A vampire AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Teeth

(2009)

Peter's a paramedic and his brother's been missing for four years. That is, in fact, the entirety of who he is. He has a mother he rarely calls and an on-again off-again girlfriend that can tell him to fuck off in five different sign languages, and his brother has been missing for four years. No letter, no forwarding address, no phonecall in the middle of the night just to say he's okay, he's alive and he's coming home soon. His mother packs boxes of Nathan's things but doesn't sell the house, even when Heidi takes the kids and leaves. Peter just waits for Nathan to come home.

 

(2010)

They are still a myth, an old wives tale, a joke in constant search of a punchline. David Letterman talking about sparkles and teenaged girls writing love notes between the sticky pages of their dairies, not on their computers because diaries have gone back to being romantic, everyone thinks it's funny, the vampire craze. There are clubs and websites and nothing at all Peter has ever been interested in. Except that girl in that alley. When he gets the call, Peter holds her hand and asks her name and she says, "Niki. My name is Niki. Please don't let me die." He tells her he won't, but it's a promise he can't keep and she bleeds out, all over the pavement.

Peter only looks up once, and there he is, standing just under the shadow of the streetlights, black coat and black pants and all he can think is: Nathan never wears turtlenecks, and then: Nathan's dead. He blinks and Nathan's gone, and the woman - Niki, she's she's still bled out.

He should have left it well enough alone, left it to the cops, instead he prowls the nearby streets until he find himself drawn to a club, almost unwillingly. They look him over and let him in, and everything disorients, heat and lights and bodies writhing on the dance floor, and a tiny blonde girl with a beguiling smile that takes him by the hand and leads him upstairs, to a room that's quiet save for the relative few people scattered here and there, talking or drinking or making out. "Claire," the girl says, and she kisses him, but it's not her that rips his throat out.

Nathan says, "You shouldn't have come here," and "Get out, now. Go, don't come back," but Peter's not listening, just ranting, in grief, in rage, in relief and love, so much love. Clinging to him because he disappeared, he died, he left Peter alone and Peter couldn't cope for years afterwards, and even though his life makes sense _now_, Peter still can't live without him.

Claire says from the doorway, "So are you going to turn him or not?"

Nathan was a lawyer, a husband, a father of two young children. He wanted to run for congress, had ambitions further than that. Senator, President maybe, someday, his mother said, running her hand along his arm. President Petrelli, had a nice ring to it. "I didn't want this," he says, and Peter nods his head uncertainly, not quite understanding. His hand on Peter's face, his body, achingly familiar, as is the kiss, but he doesn't expect the way it hurts, the way it tears apart every inch of him, until he's certain, he'll never be put together again.

 

(2097)

There's a geneticist named Mohinder Suresh who says, "If I can run some tests on your blood, I can perhaps find a way to replicate your condition in others without such extreme quantities of blood being exchanged between the donor and the recipient." Turning someone takes _time_, he'd spent an eternity with Nathan, slowly dying as a wrist was pressed to his lips, quietly insistent, until he stopped resisting, opened his mouth to swallow hot coppery blood.

"Could you then reverse the effects," he asks, and Dr. Suresh falters.

"That's not what - that's not what your brother intends for me to do, but it is likely possible, yes."

Mohinder wants to be just like them. Peter won't turn him, but perhaps Nathan would. Will fuck him though, press him back against the cool glass of the lab's storage cupboards, the low hum of running equipment and Mohinder's harsh breathing the only sounds in the entire room. His lips on Mohinder's willingly bared neck, Peter never drinks from him even though he knows it's what Mohinder wants. Mohinder has an adopted daughter, Molly, who has a rare blood disorder. Part of why he does this, Peter knows, is because he wants to save her.

It's the only reason why, when the end comes, Peter spares his life.

 

(2098)

He's twenty-nine when his brother decides to destroy everything. It's not quite the end of the world, except for the part where it most certainly is. Twenty-nine when Nathan says, more or less, "You know what would be great? More of us, less of them." In Nathan's mind, it's altruism of a sort: no more poverty, no more famine or war or any of the myriad complications that come from being mortal, from being afraid to die and striking out against that. The whole world, Nathan says, is held in the thrall of death, terrified of its constant, looming shadow. "I could change all that," he says, and the way he says it, Peter's almost convinced.

Peter's jerking himself off lazily in Nathan's bed, enjoying the feel of black silk sheets against his skin. He never did get too blase to enjoy the simple things in life. The feel of his own hand on his cock, half-hard and waiting. He's twenty-nine, and it's not the first time his brother's made some grand proclamation about the world. It's not even he first year he's been twenty-nine when Nathan made it.

Peter's been twenty-nine for a long time now, and most likely for a long time to come.

 

(2101)

The werewolf's name is Caitlin. She's old enough to read minds, but says she doesn't, not anymore. "Besides," and her smile is shy and surprisingly hesitant, "I know exactly what you're thinking." Peter falls instantaneously, madly in love. He spends the next fifteen months or so persuading her that they don't have to be of the same breed to be together. Eventually she gives in.

They play house for a while, he's a paramedic once and and she's a doctor, teeth and nails sharp as knives whenever she feels like it, or at the whims of the moon. The burden of being a werewolf, she tells him, is feeling every inch of you tear itself apart and knit back together in a different way. "And yet it's exactly the same," she says.

Some nights he waits for her by the window, ears pricked for every movement, every sound. He recognizes the howl that's hers, and hers alone. It's not for him, he imagines that it is, drawn to it like a siren, even though she tells him, don't follow, don't come. This is mine and mine alone.

Nathan calls him, says shortly, "Listen I'm in Tokyo. The Meridian," and hangs up. All these years, still expecting Peter to come to heel. But if Caitlin's song is one that he is voluntarily drawn to, then Nathan's is the one that he can't resist. Something about who it was that made him, or that they're brothers. Brother, lover, _father_, above all else, even before all of this.

The girl that opens the door is tiny and blonde, she looks him up and down before leaning close and sniffing, delicate nose wrinkling cutely. "You smell like dog," she says. "Oh, I heard about you, Peter, but I didn't think it was true." Peter grabs one of her hands, wandering near his coat. She flinches and tries to pull away, but he grips hard until she snaps, "Someone's protective over Cujo. They're a lower species. You could do better."

"Elle," Nathan says, from the doorway of the other room. Peter only looks up, but he finally lets ago. She snarls at him, but settles when Nathan tells her tiredly, "That's enough. Go for a walk or something okay?"

"Fine. Stinks in here anyway."

She's gone before Peter can properly say goodbye, and he tells Nathan, "You used to have better taste than that."

Nathan scowls. "She's not mine" he says, but doesn't elaborate, and Peter doesn't ask. "Besides, she's not wrong. You do smell of - her."

Once, there was a great and terrible war between them and the werewolves. As told, Peter's not sure who won, only that both sides, at one point, verged on extinction, and that an uneasy truce was reached, just to prevent that. This was long before either him or Nathan existed, but even Nathan's not deluded enough to think this revolution of his is going to pass by unnoticed. He's prepared for it, he says, prepared for them. Peter says, concisely and clearly, "I will not support you on this. I will fight, with them, if I have to."

Nathan's face shutters, but he only says, "You do what you have to do, Pete."

A distinct rustling emerges from the room behind Nathan. Peter takes a deep breath, lets the air settle under his tongue, thick and rich with scent. "What did you promise him? Claire's safety?"

"Hello, Peter," Noah says. He lets his hand touch Nathan's shoulder, casual and possessive, as he emerges. "It's good to see you again."

"Wish I could say the same for you. Shouldn't you know better than to give in to Nathan's latest round of psycho with delusions of grandeur?"

Noah says nothing, but his gaze is calculating, complex with meaning. Peter knows this: Noah will choose the side with the most most chances of success, but his own private agenda might not necessarily align with that. He files that away, for future reference. "I should leave you two alone," Noah says finally.

But Peter shakes his head and turns away from them both. "No, I've said what I've come here to say. I'm done."

 

(2095)

Tracy is the twin sister of the woman that died that night, the woman that changed everything. She comes looking for her sister's killer, comes looking for revenge, and when Peter turns her, he thinks, maybe it's a favor, maybe it's an apology for not being able to save her sister's life. Eventually she stops hating him, and they even live together for a while, somewhere in the middle of the twenty-first century, in a post nuclear Paris.

The radiation's long gone, or so they say, not that it affects either one of them, beyond Tracy complaining that the air smells of ash and faintly rotten flesh. He can't disagree, one of the drawbacks of heightened senses is being able to detect what goes unnoticeable by almost everyone else. "The blood tastes different too," she says. "You know?" Two generations after the bomb goes off, the descendants of the fallout still bear the scars of the explosion, mutant babies and incurable cancer and blood that's forever tainted. Not unpalatable, just strange. Different.

"Maybe they're mutating," he muses once, and she glances sharply at him, but in the end she only looks away. She was never a big fan of science fiction, not his Tracy.

 

(2102)

Noah hunts and keeps werewolves and succubi and all sort of dangerous creatures locked up at a facility in Beijing. He brings Peter down there sometimes, to what's most commonly referred to as the dungeon. There's always screams. Long nails scraping along walls. The faint scent of blood and fear in the air. Distasteful, mostly. Peter tries not to breathe through his nose. This time: "His name is Wes," he says, of the newest addition to their secret club, chained up and huddled at the corner of the room. "Werewolf. Extremely dangerous."

"He doesn't look so dangerous to me."

"The werewolves are always dangerous, Peter, because they can't control themselves." From anyone else it would sound judgmental. But Noah's only repeating a statement of fact. His job is to enforce the status quo. Keep children tucked safely in their beds, unaware that the monsters that they dream about are real, believing their parents when they say, "There is no boogieman, sweetheart. Now go back to sleep."

"I thought you were on Nathan's side," Peter says.

"I'm on my side. I like things the way they are, so there will be no revolution," Noah says, and he hands Peter a sword and a gun. "I hope you know what you have to do."

The sword is old, possibly older than Peter himself, and immaculately made. Peter weighs it in his hands, decides it will do. "Are you still clean?" Noah asks, and when Peter nods his head he says, "You might want to take care of that." Peter ignores him and turns to go, but Noah puts a hand on his arm and leans in close. Says, without once looking directly at Peter, "Once, they'd talk about the brothers Petrelli and say 'the younger brother, that's the good one', and then, years later, for the longest period of time they'd say 'the younger brother, that's the one we're grateful the older one has a leash on, because he lays waste without care'. Now they only speak of you in myth. Make them remember who you once were, Peter."

At some point Peter had gone through what he called direly needed self-examination and what Nathan termed, when he was being generous, "a mid-life crisis" and when he wasn't, "suicidal ideation". What Peter found out: it weakened the body, but kept the mind pure. Animal blood didn't taste so bad after a while.

"I'll take care of Claire," Peter says, because that's all, ultimately, Noah cares for. It still rankles him that Nathan's her father, even after all these years. Noah nods his head: he understands.

There's someone else waiting for them, a werewolf that shakes Peter's hand and is introduced to as "Matt Parkman, meet Peter Petrelli. Peter, Matt. Matt's going to help us, isn't he?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help. But we - at least some of us, are on your side. Whatever you need, man."

 

(2027)

The world spins on its axis and nothing ever changes. Their mother dies, Nathan refuses to go to the funeral but Peter wants to, even though he himself has been missing now for almost two decades. "I think we we broke her heart," he tells Nathan, because she lost both her sons, and Nathan looks away. It's at his insistence that they never paid a visit to their mother, that Peter never could visit Emma just to say hello: you have to let go of your past life, that's done with now. Besides, you'd only hurt them in the long run.

But Peter always had a tendency to cling.

 

(2105)

Nathan sends him messages from New York. He has a new pet, her name is Daphne, Claire says hi and she misses you, and oh yeah our last living descendant just died, Simon's great great granddaughter many times removed, gone to ash like everybody else. The end of the Petrelli family, although they've not used that name for a few generations now. Peter wants to feel something, but he doesn't, so he just pours another glass of wine and sits on the balcony for a while, watches the city burn.

He almost changes his mind over the decision to oppose Nathan's plan when he realizes at some point he'll have to move back to America. The guy he's shacked up with at the time, his name's Adam and he's old, older than Nathan and Peter combined, although he laughs when Peter asks if he's the oldest one of them around, "No, love. It's just that the really old ones have a tendency to hibernate. Literally, hibernate, underground, for centuries, even millennia. They'd probably die from shock if you ever woke them though. Best not to think of it."

Peter does though. But mostly he thinks of the man who turned Nathan in the first place. Adam snorts and says, "Your family issues, you'd think you'd have them sorted out by now. Far too Greek for me," and then he clams up and refuses to speak to Peter for days.

 

(2098)

"New world order," Nathan says. "We tell the world, but only after we gather enough numbers that they have no choice but to agree. Turn whoever's worthy. And then the rest."

The sun is rising, and that was another surprise, once upon a time, a dozen lifetimes ago, the sun not burning his skin, turning him into ash. Just sunscreen and sunblock and a general sense of weakness, they are children of the night but the sun still welcomes them in its golden hued light. "You should come back to bed," Peter says, and he maybe thinks his brother is joking, but mostly he knows he's not. Nathan always had ambition, and nothing ever changed that.

He rattles off names, dreamers and inventors, people who have changed the world, to Nathan, whose look says: what's your point. Peter's point is, "Stagnation, Nathan. We create because we fear death. Because our time is limited and we want to leave a mark that burns forever, because we want to be remembered when we're gone."

Nathan frowns, deliberately misunderstanding. "We'll change the ones that are worthy. Imagine what the world would be like, if Einstein hadn't died." Missing the point, entirely. Nathan's never listened to any voice that isn't his own, and certainly not Peter's.

 

(2111)

Adam says, after Peter's made plans with the werewolves, specifically Matt Parkman who promises to be there at the very least, "Are you sure you want to do this, mate? I prefer running in the opposite direction of the trouble, but that's just me."

"He's my brother," Peter says.

Adam knows they fuck. He doesn't care, although he did pause when he found out the fucking started _before_ either one of them were turned. Morals tend to loosen after you die, not before. "Did you ever think, Peter," Adam says quietly, "That if Nathan should have just not turned you at all, just let you be - if he loved you well enough to know that you're, well. You." Peter stares at him blankly then, and he continues with a slight quirk in his mouth, "This is the part where you tell me once again that he's your brother, and that you love him."

"No, this is the part where I tell you to suck my dick."

"I could do that," Adam says, and he's on his knees in front of Peter, face turned up, pale and bright as the sun.

Peter offers up a wrist, but Adam prefers the soft flesh on the inside of his elbow. He slides his sleeve up and Adam lays a wet trail up his arm with his tongue before biting down hard, blood blooming underneath his mouth. Peter winces, says, "Don't get blood on the floor," but Adam's fingers are busy finding their way to the inside of Peter's pants, so after a while he doesn't pay so much attention to the flooring anymore.

 

(2109)

Sometimes he dreams: Nathan's in the same club, that same night, leaning against the bar, hands gripped against the shiny polished wood. Peter comes up to him and slips and arm around his waist, kisses the side of his neck, and Nathan doesn't move, acknowledge him at all until Peter actually grabs hold of his jaw, turns his head around so he can kiss him. Nathan remains stiff, but his mouth opens when Peter bites down hard enough for his lower lip to start bleeding. Nathan's blood, always, even that little bit, makes him dizzy, and he whispers, "Come on, let's get out of here." Nathan only pulls away slightly, and his eyes are fully dark but his face is stern. "Nathan, please," Peter says, and Nathan finally allows Peter to pull him away.

Upstairs, Nathan looks around him with disdain. "Here, Peter," he says, and Nathan's always been so good at that particular tone of voice that Peter barely registers it at all, except to shrug and drag Nathan to the couch, pushing him down onto his back. He offers up one hand automatically and Nathan grabs ahold of it, sinking his teeth into the delicate flesh on his wrist as Peter works on Nathan's belt. He likes to ride his brother this way, his one hand on Nathan's chest and the other one at his lips, feeling his blood rush straight through to his brother's heart, filling him up, replacing parts of himself with Peter.

It's not a dream that makes sense, in any particular way, but Adam says he wakes up grouchy and mean, "A right bitch to be around," and Peter wants to smack him, because five centuries and the man still is stubbornly English, in a day and age when England does not actually exist anymore except for as a footnote in the annals of history. Mostly one that says: This used to be an Empire. Here there be dragons, now. "Look, it's a stupid plan, and I'm not sure why you're so damned upset. No-one's going to turn the world. Last time I turned someone I was laid out for a week. Who's going to expose themselves to that kind of vulnerability?"

"You don't know Nathan," is Peter's only reply. And: "What if he succeeds?"

"Then I'm grateful that I'm not one of them, eh?" He tucks his hands into his pockets and leans down so their faces are about an inch apart. "I tried changing things once, and someone buried me in a grave. Took me fifty years to dig myself out. I wouldn't worry about being unable to stop him. There's always a hero lying in wait, even among monsters like us."

 

(2110)

This is the great tragedy of it all: no one chooses to be a villain. In his mind, Nathan has a plan, and it's a good one, and it will succeed, and the world will thank him for it, on its hands and knees. Peter perhaps sees his brother kinder than the world does, he's perfectly aware of that, but he likes to think he has some influence over his decisions. The problem is, Nathan's a bureaucrat right now, and he will only listen to what other bureaucrats have to say. Peter's been a lot of things over the centuries, undertaker, orderly, nurse, even those years in the Vatican, but one thing he's never been able to master is the art of bureaucracy.

Months pass. Or years, even. Things change, in a way he only vaguely notices. People disappear, and then reappear. Changed. Adam watches the news and pauses at a face, "Hey isn't that-"

"Yes."

"A bit high profile, innit? I was a hero in feudal Japan once. But they had masks back then. And no digital face recognition software." Adam waxes lyrical about the old days on occasion, as do all of them, but he always follows that up with a shudder, "No electricity, no toilet paper, what a bloody nightmare."

"He's one of Nathan's men," Peter tells him, reaching for a name. Maury something. With the son that got bit when he was five. Politicians, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, engineers. Men and women of power, and influence. "It's starting."

"I think it started a long time ago." Adam doesn't seem too distressed. He makes a face and shrugs at Peter's wide footed, crossed armed stance. "Hey, at least you look the part. But could you kill your own kind when you can't even drain the cattle."

"Don't call them that," Peter says automatically. "And I just need to stop him, that's all."

 

(2048)

It's a lie that being immortal means that you have a lot of time to self-reflect. Mostly what it is, is you spend a lot of your time figuring out new and interesting ways to not deal with shit. Such as: Nathan, and the anatomy of their complicated relationship. All those years in the seminary, Nathan only visits him once, body rigid with what Peter only now recognizes as shame and fear and anger. He only says though, derisively, "And here I thought you were underachieving when you'd decided to clean up bedpans," and when Peter ignores him, Nathan shoves him down onto a pew and gets down on his knees. He lets his legs fall open when Nathan slides his hands up and undoes his pants, stares up at the stained glass ceiling as he sinks his teeth into the vein on the inside of Peter's thigh.

Afterwards, Peter kisses Nathan on the lips, tastes his own blood and his own come, and whispers, "I bet you're still afraid God will smite you for what you've done to me."

Nathan flinches, and glares. "There is no God, Peter, if creatures like us exist."

 

(2113)

Noah's message is simple. It says two things:

1) Arthur Petrelli is still alive  
2) do not trust Adam

Peter asks, "Why," and Adam only shrugs.

"Because, unlike you. Unlike your dear brother - I'm not an optimist." He reaches out and tucks an errant strand of Peter's hair back behind his ears. "We will reveal ourselves, and there will be a war like no other, and the world will crumble into ashes, as it should have done, thousands of years ago. I just got tired of waiting for the meteorite to hit, that's all."

"You can't trust my father," Peter says, but Adam only kisses him and refuses to change his mind.

 

(2114)

Peter's father died when he was twenty-five. Peter doesn't miss him that much, possibly he misses his long dead and buried pets more, but he was still Dad, and he'd wept at the funeral, mostly for what he'd wanted them to be as a family than what they were. Nathan's hand on his shoulder, and if he was upset he didn't show it, until late night when they were both alone and Peter had to put the broken pieces of the son whose father had actually raised him, back together again. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. He'd never seen his brother so devastated, so furious.

Except Arthur didn't die at all, and all Peter can think when he finds out is: you selfish bastard.

 

(2010)

The first time:

Nathan's cock is thick and velvet dark and hard, Peter bites down experimentally on a vein that makes its way from the base almost to the tip, holds Nathan down as he bucks. The blood tastes like liquid lust, like pain and heat and need - it's too much, he swallows and gasps, has to pull away, dizzy and disoriented. Nathan only grins, his hand coming up to stroke lazily where Peter had stopped, "Just don't bite it off, okay," and Peter blinks sweat out of his eyes until the world rights itself again.

There is nothing but blood, here and now, beating through his veins, his cock, Nathan's, "I need," he gasps out, but Nathan is already pulling Peter close, wrapping one hand firmly around him as Peter writhes against him, every nerve an ending, every touch almost painful. Nathan tells him it gets better, the sensory overload, the desire, but Peter's not convinced. He's moaning, open mouthed and wanton, watching himself come helplessly into Nathan's hand, pale and shot through with threads of the purest red, not so much pleasure as it is release, and then he's collapsing, and Nathan's kissing him on his shoulder, murmuring nonsense words of comfort into his skin. Peter sighs bonelessly against him, squeezes his eyes shut and still there's only red, only blood.

Afterwards, Nathan will push Peter onto his back, and Peter's thighs will fall open at his touch, and Nathan will fuck him, deep and unbearably slow. Peter will turn his head into the pillow, try to breathe evenly, try to drown out every sound, every touch that feels like an assault, feels like death, but Nathan will grip his jaw with one firm hand and say, demand, "Look at me, Peter," and Peter has no choice, and Nathan's eyes are too dark and not human in the least, and Peter reaches for him and Nathan holds him down, laces their fingers together and whispers into his ears, "It's okay. It'll be okay," and from one second to the next, Peter will shake, and believe him.

 

(2115)

Some guy sends Peter emails sometimes, says his name is Hiro Nakamura and talks about the end of the world. Talks about saving it. Tells him that Noah Bennet advised him to contact Peter Petrelli, that their interests might just align. Peter emails back once, "Where have you been, the past few centuries or so."

The reply is a surprise: I was sleeping, and now I'm not.

Peter wonders how old he is, and mentions it in passing, to Adam, watches his face turn ashen. "So I take it you know this dude?" and "No, you're not going to tell me. Seriously?"

Adam's gone the next day, but Peter has more pressing things to worry about. Like his brother, and how Peter's not going to save him, not this time. How Hiro Nakamura is on his way, dragged himself out from the pit, "They just sleep," Adam said. "They get tired, and they get old, and they go to sleep. It's a bit of a waste, to be frank. Hate to think it might happen to us someday," and what Peter will say to him when he gets here. It's not that Peter considers himself a good man, not anymore, not even a man, really, just someone barely human, making do.

 

(2100)

"Perhaps I should have predicted this," he tells Gabriel. Gabriel who was once a monster, even among those like them, but who now sits by Peter's side and talks softly and serenely and always with an expression of strange, borderline terrifying blankness. "The bastard was always overreaching." Except that Nathan never did overreach: everything he ever wanted was always just there for the taking.

He's been twenty-nine for almost a century now, and Nathan once said, "You don't have to kill anyone if you don't want to", and it was the truth, except for the part where he did, because no-one was strong enough to resist the pull at first, and he couldn't stop, and once he got past the guilt, the endless guilt, he wanted to do nothing but. He'd wanted to help people once. Became a nurse, then a paramedic, tried his level best to make a difference. But that person is long dead, and now all he sees is blood and death, everywhere he goes. Nathan looking over him like a proud father, but sometimes like he was ashamed, and sick, and sad, and afraid for all of them. Peter comes up to him then, and kisses him hard on the lips: look what you did to me.

Look what your love has done to me.

He should have stayed away. Forever and ever on the cusp of thirty, and his brother, he's forever older, but not necessarily wiser. The brother who loves you so much he'll kill you, even though the way he tells it, it's not death, not even close. The way he tells it, his hand over Peter's heart, and yeah he can still hear it beating. Can hear everything, from the slight intake of breath that Nathan takes to the scratch of needle against plastic as the deejay outside changes the record, to the dog barking, incessant and lonely, five city blocks away. Nathan's hand on his heart and he says, "You have to understand, this wasn't a choice. I love you. You shouldn't have come here."

 

(2116)

But Peter truly only wants Arthur dead, and that's only a surprise to Nathan, who expects hugs, a tearful family reunion, not Peter with a gun and then a sword, right through the neck, and Arthur's head drops, almost comically, to the floor, bounces and rolls to stop at Mohinder's booted feet. "Congratulations," Peter tells him, because it's been a while and the last time he saw Mohinder he was still human. "How's your daughter."

"She's - she's fine," Mohinder says, still staring at the head. The blood seems to upset him, which is odd. Not the way any of them reacts to blood. They're programmed to lust, to desire. Taking life so you yourself can live, endless and never changing. Never evolving, for better or for worse.

They're surrounded by security, soon enough, red laser beams pointed directly at his head, but Nathan waves his hands and snaps, "Stand down, everybody just stand down. Pete," he says, and he holds out his hand. "Put down the fucking sword." Peter just smiles, and grabs Nathan's arm, twists so the blade of the sword is pressed against his neck. This is how he gets out, with Nathan's body pressed angrily against him, and it's not quite an accident that the blade cuts through delicate skin, that he momentarily bends his head, slides his tongue along the rapidly closing wound. Nathan's blood always tastes the best.

The werewolves block his exit, Knox and Flint, they've shifted and they snarl at him with big slobbering teeth. Peter shoots them both, each bullet directly between the eyes, but he leaves Parkman alive. "Can you take care of this?"

Parkman nods his head and lowers his hands. "I can take care of this."

The elevator door opens, and a man steps out, blood on his hands and face. His name is Hiro Nakamura, he says, and he bows. "It's nice to finally meet you," he tells Peter, and Peter wants to shake his hand but he's got Nathan by the throat still. "Take your brother and go, Peter," he says, and what he means is: I'm sparing his life, but he's your responsibility now.

"Come on," Peter says, and he drags Nathan off. They don't stick around to watch the building burn to the ground, but Peter looks back as they're driving off, as flames start licking at the facade.

 

(2077)

Late winter, a wall somewhere in an alley in fucking Missouri. Peter hates winter, hates the cold, hates fucking Missouri, but not as much and as loudly as Nathan does. This is what Nathan does: he drops in to see Peter as if he's doing Peter a favor and then bitches the entire time. His hands are warm though, down Peter's pants, slowly stroking him until he's hard, shivering with need as much as cold. "There's a girl, Peter, from Brazil. Her blood tastes like the sea. I left some of her for you, if you'd like."

Peter shakes his head no resolutely, even as he unconsciously seeks Nathan's body for warmth. In winter, animal blood is not enough. In winter, animal blood is him, thuggish and slow as his body temperature lowers and his brain sends signals that it's time to rest, to hibernate. He presses gloved hands clumsily against Nathan's coat and Nathan presses one knee forcefully between Peter's legs. It's a jolt right through his nervous system, he moans, open mouthed and on this side of pleading.

"You're always so fucking stubborn," Nathan says, his eyes full black with rage, and lust, and heat. Impatient and unimpressed, but he puts his free hand up to Peter's mouth anyway, until Peter's forced to bite down. "Come on," and he's right. Tastes like the ocean, and Nathan's hard and needs him, needs this. He lets his head fall back and he's a hypocrite, this isn't going clean, this is him pretending: Nathan makes him do this.

His cock is still hard. Peter says "Please, please Nathan," and he's not sure what he's asking for, except to hold Nathan's hand still when he tries to pull away. It's always dangerous, Nathan will allow him to take too much and Peter won't know when to stop.

"That's enough," finally, and when Peter lets go he shakes his arm if the closing wound is merely an inconvenience, but his face is pale and dazed.

"Sorry," Peter says, and he offers up his throat automatically. This is how Nathan likes him best. Flushed with real, human blood, his body bowing in supplication. Peter shudders at Nathan's hand on him, slow, and then fast, and then slow again, drawing it out, and everytime Nathan's teeth sink in it's like the first time and he's dying, once more. A billion suns going out, one by one, and Peter whispers please, please, and Nathan tells him to come at some point, and Peter whispers urgently, "No, I can't. I can't. Please-" but then he does, and this isn't dying, this is worse. This is losing himself entirely to Nathan, to teeth and skin and the primal urge to tear asunder. Nathan always likes to tell him he doesn't know what he is, but the thing is, he does. Like this, he Nathan's, and his breathing is ragged and harsh when he says, "I love you - whatever you want, Nathan. Whatever, anything-"

Nathan kisses him then, cups his face with hands that are still too warm, says, "Shh, Pete. I know, I know." He sounds indulgent, but underneath it there's a hint of desperation, a craving for something Peter won't, can't give. Because this too will pass, like all their encounters. End in harsh words and rage and separation, the thousands of miles Peter will travel to put some distance between them. "I love you too," Nathan says finally, and it sounds like defeat.

 

(2116)

On a train that once brought travelers from one destination to another, but now aimlessly drifts through overcrowded cities and towns without stopping and caters only to the privileged and the different, Peter orders wine, two steaks and a young girl no more than twelve. Nathan sniffs with disdain at all except for the girl, but finally settles down across the table from Peter once he's done with her. "I left her alive for you," he says sourly, casually observing as a member of the wait staff carries her unconscious form out. "We all know how much you care."

"Don't be bitter, Nathan. It doesn't suit you." Peter cuts his steak into pieces, mostly just to watch the blood flow underneath his knife. He's not been hungry for a while, not for this.

"And what then, should I be." His lips twist, a spiteful mockery of a smile, and he lifts his glass up in a toast in Peter's direction. "The king is dead. Long live the king," he says.

"Don't be melodramatic. I only wanted to stop you, and your mad plan. Nothing else has to change."

Nathan slams the glass back down onto the table, and it shatters, splashing red wine everywhere. "Then you're a fool, and we will all die. Messes don't clean themselves up automatically, Peter. They get cleaned. By people like us. By people like _me._ While you play house with one whore after another, pretending that we all exist independently of each other. I mean, did you think all the destruction you wrecked, those years when you were acting out or going through a phase of whatever the fuck you call it, just went away by magic? Remember Goa, and those priests you just had to have, no matter the consequences." A waitress comes by, starts to wipe down the table, but Nathan snaps, "Leave us," with such vehemence she winces and almost falls over herself backing away. "But fuck it, I don't care anymore. Congratulations, Pete. This is your problem now."

"Nathan, don't," Peter says, but Nathan only crosses his arms resolutely and turns to look out of the window. "Nothing needs to change."

"Don't you get it, Pete. It already has."

Peter abandons the steak, finally, puts down the cutlery. It's ruined in any case, by shards of glass and wine. "I love you, Nathan," he says, as Nathan starts to laugh, shakes his head in despair. "The train stops in New York. You can get off if you want. I won't stop you."

 

(2098)

"Fuck the revolution," Peter says, wrapped up in his brother's black silk sheets, but megalomania fits Nathan like a well cut suit, he stalks back to the bed with a purpose, with a spring in his step, places a kiss on his shoulder before sliding in beside Peter. Pressed together, they fit like well-oiled machine parts do, each one knowing its place. Nathan's is to take, and Peter's is to give. But perhaps not this. Perhaps just about anything but this.

"Mohinder figured it out," he says sleepily, against Peter's neck. "The world will change for the better. You'll see."


End file.
